


Ashes

by Karasuno Volleygays (ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor)



Series: Sportsfest 2018 [13]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Grief, M/M, loss of a spouse, with a side of Healing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 12:30:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15886101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor/pseuds/Karasuno%20Volleygays
Summary: When Tobio finds himself alone in an apartment meant for two, a life meant for two, the only thing he knows how to be is alone. Well-meaning friends try to shake him out of it, but it only reminds him of what he's lost. It takes someone he hasn't seen in years to remind him that it's all right to hurt, but it's also all right to live on.





	Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for bonus round 1 of sportsfest 2018. It also broke my heart.

The soft lilt of the piano radiates throughout the apartment, an old song that probably hasn’t hit the radio waves for over twenty years, but one that’s almost ingrained in this particular set of ivories. Its player stares blankly at the wall behind it, fingers moving automatically as they coax out the familiar tune.

His fingers stall on the keys, and his shoulders start to shake. He tries to keep playing, to drown out the barrage of thoughts this room, this entire house, won’t stop pouring into him. But it’s  _ their  _ song.

At least it was.

There’s a knock at the door, but he ignores it. The knocking grows more insistent, and his name comes muffled and urgent between blows. He hits the keys harder to wash the sound away. He doesn’t want to be that person anymore, and he doesn’t want to listen to anyone trying to drag him back to that life again.

Kageyama Tobio no longer exists; the best parts of him are burnt to dust in the pot of ashes on the kotatsu that he can’t quite bear to spread around some idyllic scene that would’ve made  _ him _ happy. Tobio isn’t ready for that, not yet.

Eventually, the door finds its way open and his attempt at peace invaded. Arms wrap around him, try to soothe him and tell him everything will be okay. It’s a kind, white lie Tobio wishes he can believe.

The first of many callers in those next few weeks finally gives up and makes way for the next and the next after that until Tobio can’t think of anyone who knew them both who hasn’t paid a pity visit to explain to him how things happen for a reason and that he’ll heal and be strong again.

That last thought makes his lip curl in disgust and his fingers to land ugly and discordant on the keys. They’re the words of someone who hasn’t had anything as vital as their still-beating heart wrenched from their chest and spread out for all to see. 

A few weeks drag by, then a few months, and still he sits on that bench, hammering out that same tune. His neighbors have screamed through the walls for him to stop, the building manager paid a visit to let him know the smell of the trash he hasn’t bothered to take out in who knows how long is starting to linger in the building. 

These people, Tobio reacts to. They’re angry at him, disgusted at his pathetic state. There are no soft indulgent looks or platitudes from them. The people next door bitch about the noise, so he breaks out his keyboard and wears headphones while drowning himself in music. The trash stinks, so he throws the bag out the window in the general vicinity of the dumpster and goes back to the song.

Slowly, he doesn’t engage, but he starts to function again. He eats something other than takeout here and there, and more often than not, he actually escorts his garbage out of the building and even does the laundry a time or two.

This smattering of progress makes the parade of well-meaning visitors slow and finally stop altogether. It’s why he never expects that last knock on the door, nor the person behind it. 

“Hey, Kageyama,” he says, giving Tobio a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Mind if I bug you for a bit? You probably want to be alone, but I just wanna check on you, make sure you’re doing all right.”

If anyone has ever been able to say no to Iwaizumi Hajime, Tobio doesn’t know who they are. He quietly steps aside and lets his former senpai from middle school, something that seems like a lifetime ago, into his still-messy-but-improving apartment. 

Hajime strolls over to the piano and runs his fingers along the glossy finish. He shoots Tobio a smile. “I heard you playing from outside. I never knew you played.”

Tobio doesn’t respond, and Hajime doesn’t mention it. Instead, he touches the keys and plucks out a rudimentary line of the song’s chorus. It’s off-pitch, but Tobio knows it right away. “I remember the last time I heard this song. It was at your wedding. You danced to it.” 

Something inside Tobio starts to ache. Of all the well-meaning visitors who have come and gone, no one has ever noted what Tobio has been playing over and over. Just that he should work on other ways to cope with being so, so alone in the home that has become a simple series of walls to him now.

“You mind?” Hajime eyes the piano. Tobio shrugs, and Hajime sits at the bench. The sheet music for the song sits on the music rack, open and unseen for ages. Tobio has every chord and every dynamic scored into his brain, but Hajime thumbs through it with interest. “I haven’t played since I was a kid. Wasn’t really my thing. I had more fun going outside and getting dirty.”

An almost-smile hints on Tobio’s lips. That image suits the person he remembers Hajime being when he was younger very well. 

It’s been north of a few decades since either of them had been children, and Hajime’s playing reflects that, but that familiar melody pours into the room with an almost haunting simplicity. Tobio’s hands itch to play along, but he holds back, transfixed by the way Hajime sways to the rhythm of the song. He enjoys playing it, something Tobio has long since lost.

When the song comes to a close, Hajime turns on the bench and pats the spot beside him. Tobio sits, and they both stare off into the room in silence.

Finally, Hajime breaks the ice. “Your friends are worried about you.”

“I know.” And he does. Tobio had listened to every ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘it gets better’ spewed on him since the accident, and he doesn’t question that they believe those things. He just knows how he feels, and the two concepts do not mesh.

Hajime pulls out his phone and flicks through the camera roll. He stops on an image that’s highly unfocused and clearly the product of a much older mobile camera design and holds it out for Tobio to see.

Tobio inhales sharply. “You still have that?”

“Yeah, of course I do.” He wraps an arm around Tobio’s shoulders and leans in, flicking through a folder named Kitagawa Daiichi 2011. “I never get rid of pictures. I keep them all backed up three times over so every new phone I get, I always have these memories.”

The roll resettles on that one picture, depicting two boys much closer in height than they had ended up being as adults, their little fingers hooked together while the rest of their middle school volleyball team piles around for a snapshot. Tobio can’t look away.

“I remember that day,” he murmurs quietly, taking Hajime’s phone in his hands without objections. “Oikawa-san made you find someone to take the picture so you’d be in it, too. I think one of the parents ended up doing it.”

“That’s right.” Hajime rests his chin on Tobio’s shoulder. “I remember noticing the two of you back then, how much you liked being around each other. When you two fell out, it was hard to imagine, but you figured it out just fine. I didn’t need to worry about either of you.”

Tobio’s voice cracks. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Live.” 

The word is so simple, yet the connotation behind it is too complicated for Tobio to process. It implies moving on, going back to work, shopping for groceries, cleaning the apartment, talking to people until neither of them stop looking away awkwardly unsure what to say. It’s too much for Tobio’s brain to handle. Not when his heart is in a jar and not sleeping beside him in a now too-big bed every night.

He chokes out a sob, and Hajime’s arms wrap around him as he finally lets himself cry. He feels Hajime’s own tears dribble down his chin, and Tobio can’t help but note that it’s the first time someone has stopped in to grieve with him, rather than try to coax him into moving on from it.

They sit this way for a long while until Tobio’s back starts to object from the awkward angle. He straightens and looks down at his hands, his wet cheeks and snotty nose unheeded. “I was doing better, but his birthday was a week ago. When I remembered, I —” Tobio chokes on the next few words. “I remembered three days late. I forgot what date it was.”

“I know.” Hajime swipes at his eyes and bites at his bottom lip. “His is just a few days before mine, and when I realized it, I lost it a little. I always had a soft spot for him, and we kept in touch until —”

_ Until he died _ , he doesn’t say.

Hajime covers Tobio’s hand with his and gives it a squeeze. “I knew you’d understand. I didn’t want to bother you, but who do you talk to when someone you knew most of your life is just . . . not there anymore?”

Tobio lets out a shuddering breath. “Someone who won’t tell you you’re thinking about it for too long. Someone who will tell you it’s okay to not be okay.” He looks up at Hajime, face crumpling but his tears long dried out. “You’re the only person who hasn’t tried to do that. Thank you.”

Hajime hugs him fiercely. “You lost your husband, the person you were going to spend the rest of your life with. Anyone who tells you to stop being upset about that is just being a dick. They’re not trying to be, but they are.”

Something heavy and suffocating loosens its vise-grip on Tobio’s heart. Not much, but a little. Enough to let him breathe once or twice without his entire being aching from it.

For the first time in a while, he looks over at the kotatsu at the jar of ashes, and he knows it’s time. “Can you help me with something?”

“Anything.” Hajime threads their fingers together in an affirming grip. “What do you need?”

“Help me see him off.”

Hajime’s gaze is drawn over to the simple canister, the same one supplied by the mortuary. “Did he have anywhere he wanted to be?”

A knot of emotion lodges in the back of Tobio’s throat. “Yeah,” he croaks. “There’s a park near our first place together. That’s where I asked him to marry me.”

“That sounds like him.” Hajime stands and nods toward the door. “C’mon. I’ll drive, and we can take as long as you need.”

Tobio follows Hajime out the door, arms wrapped tightly around the jar until they arrive at the park. It’s almost exactly the same as Tobio remembers, save for a tennis court that wasn’t there before. Fortunately, their spot is largely undisturbed by the passage of time.

Bit by bit, they commit Kindaichi Yuutarou’s ashes to the earth until all that's left in the canister is a small tuft of remains. Those, Tobio plans to keep.

They sit side by side on a nearby bench, Tobio still clutching the jar. 

“You know why he picked this spot, right?” Hajime raises a brow, and Tobio knows he’s supposed to answer. It’s a meaningful spot, and Tobio is well aware of its significance. He isn’t sure what Hajime is trying to pull out of him.

When Tobio doesn’t answer, Hajime finally supplies, “It’s because of all the moments in his life, all the things he’s done, that you’d done together, this is the one he wanted to live in forever. This is what he wanted for himself, and for your life together.”

Tobio swallows hard, and Hajime’s voice softens. “This is what he wanted for you both. Don’t shut off from life like you have and pretend it’s for him. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that didn’t work out for you last time you cut yourself off from the people around you.

“You don’t have to stop grieving. You never will.” Hajime glances around at the cheery spread of trees and grass. “But reaching out and building something new gave you this memory. It gave you your life with him. Do you really think he’d want you to hole up in your apartment alone, god only knowing the last time you showered, and not try to make new memories for yourself?”

His entire skin itching because he knows everything Hajime has said is true, Tobio gags. “I know.”

“There’s an old proverb.” Hajime stands and lets Tobio’s hand drop into his lap. “When you’re in hell, don’t stop, or you’ll never leave it.” He nods in the direction of his car. “You wanna stay here, or are you ready to go?”

It’s not just a car ride Hajime is offering, but Tobio doesn’t have to think hard about his answer. “Yeah.”

“Good.” They walk together back to the car, and Hajime says, “You need to go shopping or anything? You probably haven’t eaten anything but takeout for a while.”

Tobio nods, and piece by piece, they collect the various items he will need to start living again. 

Later that evening, when Hajime leaves after helping Tobio plow some of the filth out of his place, one of their purchases from earlier finds itself in his hands. 

He opens up the booklet and sets it on the music bench, finally stowing that old song in the hinged seat after so much time. And he begins to play. It’s a sad song, full of emotions that Tobio feels in every part of himself, but the notes no longer haunt him.

That night, he sleeps on Yuutarou’s side of the bed, a smile lingering on his lips as he dreams about that faraway day in the park where their life had begun.

**Author's Note:**

> If you maybe cried a little while reading, you're not alone. I cried a couple of times writing it. My boys. :'(


End file.
